NPR: THE FIRST FORTY YEARS

Given the thousands of hours of highly polished, intricately edited news segments in the National Public Radio archives, it would be impossible to produce anything more than a sampling of their “greatest hits.” This celebration is broken into four decades, hosted by Susan Stamberg (1970s), Noah Adams (1980s), Renee Montagne (1990s), and Guy Raz (2000s) and focusing on news-making interviews, hilarious dialogue with the likes of Chris Rock and Dame Edna, and the introduction of humorist David Sedaris in his first report from Santaland. This is nowhere near ALL the best work produced for NPR over the last 40 years, but it reminds us of what they do best: tickle our funny bones one minute and move us to tears the next. R.O. 2011 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2010]